This year has been astounding for blueberries, low bush and high all around my area, so naturally a blueberry wine to celebrate the wild crop was in order.
After painstakingly picking 24 lbs of highbush blueberries, washing them in a Kmeta solution and then freezing them for 3 weeks I decided to start my adventure with blueberries on August 29th
The recipe:
24 lbs of frozen sulphited berries
Lalvin K1V-1116
sugar to bring starting gravity to 1.096
2 tspns of yeast supernutrient (DAP and yeast hulls)
spring water to bring it to just over the 23 litre mark
1 tspn of K-meta
1 tspn of pectic enzyme (just in case)
The process,
thawed the berries and put them in pots on the stove, added a bit of water just so they could stew down a little easier, as they warmed up I mashed the berries with a potato masher. When I felt that the berries were liquified enough I tossed them into the primary fermentation pail. Just with the berries alone I was at the 18 litre mark, so I only needed to add 5 litres of water and enough sugar to bring the starting gravity to 1.096.
I decided on the K1V-1116 for this batch due to its ability to ferment under possible adverse conditions, lack of nutrient, and possible temperature fluctuations, as well as the fact that it would keep the fruit aromas and flavors.
After pitching the yeast high levels of activity were noted approximately 4 hours later.
48 hours after pitching there was a high thick foam that had formed on the must and the sweet smell of fermentation and yeast permeated my basement daily oxygenation took place for the first 4 days.
1 week into primary fermentation gravity had dropped to 1.072 and the slightest hint of H2S gas was noted, so I wanted to catch the problem early and splash racked the must through a funnel full of boiled pennies and onto the second addition of nutrients, this completely eliminated any odors and improved an already vigorous fermentation.
As of today the gravity reading is at 1.048 and the majority of the berries have been scooped out and pressed for their juices and the must has been racked into a glass carboy to continue fermentation.
So what I have learned so far from this experiment is that I should likely have started out with a higher amount of yeast nutrients to avoid the possible stress which I believe caused the early onset of H2S gas to be produced, just angry yeast is all it was. The blueberries should be in a cheesecloth or other such fermentation type bag to help eliminate the problem associated with masses of pulp and seeds throughout the must. The pulp and seeds create issues for the pump siphon as well as the wine thief, finishing it off without any seeds is going to be another issue altogether.
I will update this post as I get to the next stage. I plan on taking this to the 1.008-1.010 mark to preserve the sweetness and fruit flavour without having to backsweeten too much as the wife and I were looking for a semi sweet sipping type of wine.
After painstakingly picking 24 lbs of highbush blueberries, washing them in a Kmeta solution and then freezing them for 3 weeks I decided to start my adventure with blueberries on August 29th
The recipe:
24 lbs of frozen sulphited berries
Lalvin K1V-1116
sugar to bring starting gravity to 1.096
2 tspns of yeast supernutrient (DAP and yeast hulls)
spring water to bring it to just over the 23 litre mark
1 tspn of K-meta
1 tspn of pectic enzyme (just in case)
The process,
thawed the berries and put them in pots on the stove, added a bit of water just so they could stew down a little easier, as they warmed up I mashed the berries with a potato masher. When I felt that the berries were liquified enough I tossed them into the primary fermentation pail. Just with the berries alone I was at the 18 litre mark, so I only needed to add 5 litres of water and enough sugar to bring the starting gravity to 1.096.
I decided on the K1V-1116 for this batch due to its ability to ferment under possible adverse conditions, lack of nutrient, and possible temperature fluctuations, as well as the fact that it would keep the fruit aromas and flavors.
After pitching the yeast high levels of activity were noted approximately 4 hours later.
48 hours after pitching there was a high thick foam that had formed on the must and the sweet smell of fermentation and yeast permeated my basement daily oxygenation took place for the first 4 days.
1 week into primary fermentation gravity had dropped to 1.072 and the slightest hint of H2S gas was noted, so I wanted to catch the problem early and splash racked the must through a funnel full of boiled pennies and onto the second addition of nutrients, this completely eliminated any odors and improved an already vigorous fermentation.
As of today the gravity reading is at 1.048 and the majority of the berries have been scooped out and pressed for their juices and the must has been racked into a glass carboy to continue fermentation.
So what I have learned so far from this experiment is that I should likely have started out with a higher amount of yeast nutrients to avoid the possible stress which I believe caused the early onset of H2S gas to be produced, just angry yeast is all it was. The blueberries should be in a cheesecloth or other such fermentation type bag to help eliminate the problem associated with masses of pulp and seeds throughout the must. The pulp and seeds create issues for the pump siphon as well as the wine thief, finishing it off without any seeds is going to be another issue altogether.
I will update this post as I get to the next stage. I plan on taking this to the 1.008-1.010 mark to preserve the sweetness and fruit flavour without having to backsweeten too much as the wife and I were looking for a semi sweet sipping type of wine.
Of course, I've only ever picked the low ones myself...
